Want to get outside and start finding out about the environment around you? These brand new professional learning videos from Scotland’s Environment are a great place to start. With information for practitioners and learners, they provide a step-by-step guide on how to measure soil pH, look for invertebrates in your local pond, sample small mammal populations and more!

They are all part of an exciting new resource available from Scotland’s Environment website: Get Learning. The home of environmental data and information about Scotland for learning and teaching.

Education Scotland is delighted to announce a new and quick way to access SSERC’s resources for Science and Technology. The new SSERC tile is now on the GLOW launch pad. Add it to your launch pad for a fast and easy route to SSERC’s website.

Pupil numbers: Pupils work in teams of four, competing against teams from other schools. Maximum 20 pupils (five teams) from each school at each Challenge Day.

Dates available:

National Museum of Rural Life (East Kilbride)

Wed 28, Thu 29 & Fri 30 Oct 2015

National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh)

Mon 9 & Tue 10 Nov 2015

Inspire your pupils to discover more about the renewable energy industry. Pupils will conduct experiments, meet industry experts and work cooperatively to solve problems. The day includes solar, wind, hydro and marine power challenges and each Challenge Day concludes with a keynote speaker from the industry. One team at each Challenge Day will win a prize for themselves and their school.

Pupils will discover more about renewable energy in Scotland through a series of hands-on, group-work activities. The day will provide an introduction to the range of renewable energies in Scotland, followed by the chance for pupils to build their own hydro turbine, and engineer a wave technology model.

Welcome to our e-bulletin for sciences, technologies, engineering and maths (STEM). Please forward to those who may be interested.

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Sciences
• Award-winning online resources available until June 2016 – add Twig, Tigtag and Reach Out CPD tiles to your Launchpad in Glow
• Higher Physics professional learning videos now online
• Statistics for school biology experiments and Advanced Higher projects – SSERC guide
• 13 – 19 year olds can win a trip to New York City through the Junior Academy STEM competition
• Enter the 2016 Our Environment competition run by SEPA
• Get Learning section of Scotland’s Environment website launches soon – data about climate change, water, rivers and moreTechnologies
• Register your school to receive BBC Microbit pocket-sized computers for coding
• The National Technologies Network Glow community will keep you up to date
• New engineering science materials on the Glow NQ site
• CPD for Engineering Science – Advanced Higher writers day on the 17 September 2015
• Dunoon Primary beats 300 UK schools to win Kodu Kup
• Open University research project on use of mobile technologies – get involved!

Numeracy and mathematics
• BBC News report on supermarket pricing
• Mathematical Association conference for teachers of secondary mathematics
• The National Numeracy Progression Framework has progression pathways for all numeracy organisers
• Register for Progression Module to be delivered via the National Numeracy and Mathematics Hub from 25 August
• STEM precision farming event for secondary STEM teachers – Perthshire, 7 November

Did you know…….?
The Developing Young Workforce programme will be transforming the way that STEM is delivered in Scottish schools.

Professional learning
Reviewing the requirement for high level STEM skills – UKCES report

Video Inspiration
Make a 3D Hologram projector using a mobile phone app and CD case.

We’ve got loads more news to share! See our STEM blog for the latest updates.

Education Scotland Updates
Education Scotland Email Updates Now Available
Education Scotland offer a number of free email updates and news alerts to keep you informed of the latest developments and events in Scottish education.

We’re delighted to offer you a range of publications with a focus on specific areas, sectors and topics. These all include the latest news and key information along with links to new resources and support materials all in one place and relevant to your area of work.

You can sign up to as many email updates as you like, they are free and delivered straight to your inbox. Visit the Education Scotland website for the full list of publications available and sign up today.

Scottish Learning Festival 2015
SLF is the biggest education event in Scotland, bringing together thousands of educational professionals from across Scotland and beyond. Taking place on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 September, the theme of this year’s event focuses on raising achievement and attainment for all.

SLF is free for everyone to attend and gives you access to inspirational keynotes, over 100 professional development seminars, lively debate at the professional discussion sessions, Scotland’s largest education exhibition and opportunities for professional networking with peers and colleagues from across Scotland.

Book now to guarantee your place at SLF. Visit the SLF website to browse the full conference programme and book your place today.

Food and drink offers an engaging and practical context for learning within Curriculum for Excellence and provides opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and for rich and meaningful partnerships between schools, the food and drink organisations and other partners such as academia and research organisations. This event aims to further explore these links and demonstrate to practitioners how to use food and drink as a context for delivering a range of subjects.

Recommended for: primary and secondary practitioners with responsibilities for sciences, technologies, food & health and business studies planning for learning and transition experiences from second level to senior phase.

Education Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance and SSERC has developed a series of nine professional learning videos focused on new content in Higher Physics.

Featuring some of Scotland’s most talented physicists, they have been designed to provide high quality, accessible professional learning. The videos cover Special relativity, The big bang, Gravitational waves, Collider physics, The standard model, Hubble’s law and nuclear fusion along with two providing guidance on experiments for the Higher Physics assignment.

These videos are available from Education Scotland’s NQ Higher Sciences website.

Included in the resource, kindly shared by SSERC, are the videos of two recent SSERC meets on Hubble’s law and Collider Physics.

Education Scotland would like to thank all of the contributors who gave so freely off their time.

This year’s Institute of Physics Stirling Meeting will take place at the Stirling Court Hotel (formerly known as the Management Centre) on Wednesday 20th May. Full details, including the programme and the online registration system are available at www.stirlingmeeting.org

Registration deadline is 15th May.

Once again SSERC will be distributing free a valuable educational resource to all delegates who are currently teaching in schools.

Education Scotland has published resource guides for Advanced Higher Biology, Advanced Higher Chemistry, Advanced Higher Physics and N5 Environmental Sciences and Higher Environmental Science. These can be found in the appropriate folders.

These resource guides have been produced in response to requests from staff who attended the NQ Sciences events at Hampden Stadium in December 2013. Those attending felt it would be useful to have a document which helped them navigate to the most relevant resources quickly.

These resource guides show the mandatory course key area tables from the SQA Advanced Higher Biology, Chemistry and Physics as well as N5 and Higher Environmental Science Course and Unit Support Notes. An additional fourth column has been included which contains hyperlinks to resources that are relevant to each of the key areas. Please note: Teachers are not required to use the resources listed – they are only included as helpful suggestions. Teachers should also refer to the SQA website for the most up-to-date course and unit support notes.

These resources form part of a suite of guides including N5 and Higher Biology, Chemistry and Physics and Higher Human Biology.